INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Xbox-maker Microsoft announced today that it will not have a presence at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this year,
highlighting concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.
The company made the announcement on its Game Stack Blog:
After a close review
of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution, we&ve made the difficult decision to withdraw from
participating at Game Developers Conference 2020 in San Francisco.
Instead of holding a physical event at the conference, Microsoft says it
will be holding an online-only event that week.
Microsoft is just the latest company to pull out from the conference, which is being held
Other companies backing out include Facebook, Unity and Sony
Epic Games announced it would also be pulling out of the event Thursday.
Epic is out from GDC as well, not looking good for this event
which is in a little over 2 weeks https://t.co/Tf9jbIXYuD
mdash; Lucas Matney (@lucasmtny) February 27, 2020
Earlier this week, city
officials in San Francisco declared a state of emergency.
The COVID-19 outbreak has already affected several large industry conference
Facebook also announced Thursday morning that it would be canceling its F8 conference
With such major players exiting GDC, one wonder whether the conference could face a similar fate to GSMA Mobile World Congress which
eventually had to cancel the mobile event outright after its major exhibitors all bowed out.
We&ve reached out to the folks behind GDC for
